Passengers panicked as my arrow pierced the middle Fury's wing, causing flames to slowly creep up the left side of her body. Skylar managed to avoid the other two Furies' freakishly overgrown nails while I finished my initial opponent off.

I pulled out a celestial dagger from my bag and impaled it into the Kindly One's throat. I rolled to Skylar's side and deflected one of the Furies' whip with my bow, before it could hit Skylar.

When the Furies jumped back a safe distance away from us, we did the same.

"You can't say your weren't expecting something like this to happen" I called out to Skylar, substituting my dagger for Ilíos.

I pulled out an arrow and aimed it at another Fury. I let the arrow fly but the Fury easily dodged it. As the Fury lunged, I ducked and counter-attached by slamming Ilíos into the creature's chin. The Fury tried to move out of the way, but I pulled out my dagger again and hit her with the hilt, sending her a few feet into the air. Before she could land, I side kicked the monster to the back of the bus. Passangers scrambled out of the way, one of them even recording us before running for his life. To my left, Skylar was struggling to release her sword from the Fury's constricting whip. I notched an arrow and prepared to help her, but Skylar unleashed a large wave of frigid water that crashed into and immobilized the Furies before I could. I was pretty sure that it was sewer water and I was very sure that the Furies hadn't appreciated that.

"Of course I was expecting this!" Skylar called back. "Now, quick! The emergency exit!"

Without a second thought, I followed Skylar to the top of the moving train and away from the Furies. We quickly climbed the ladder and hoisted ourselves up to the top of the train.

"You okay?"I asked Skylar as we made our way across the top of the vehicle. She had a claw mark going down her arm but it didn't look too serious. The daughter of Poseidon simply nodded.

"Maybe they'll think we got away. And they'll leave. Other wise we're going to have to jump off the train."

"Uh, I'm pretty sure that's a horrible idea."

"We're kinda low on options here, Sunflower."

A couple feet away the top of the train cart ripped open. The Furies erupted from the cart and flew straight towards us.

Not a moment too soon, Skylar jumped off the train and out of sight. I looked down, sighed, and stepped off of the side of the train. I got ready to duck into a roll but a Fury snatched me out of mid air and slammed me hard against the rails. I reached for a dagger as the Fury's claws dug deep into my skin, causing blood to slowly soak my shoulder sleeves. My back was oozing blood from the landing.

I struggled, trying to loosen the monster's grip. The Fury hissed at me and was about to rip my face off when an arrow sprouted from her throat. Skylar stood at a distance, her bow raised her hand quickly getting another arrow. The monster burst into golden dust and covered me head to toe. I wrinkled my nose, gross.

I quickly began to get up, reaching for an arrow. I looked down and I realized that my necklace had started beaming a bright gold. Just like it always did when I was wounded in battle.

See when I was brought to camp half blood as a newborn, I was brought by the great, powerful goddess Demeter. When she found me alone and crying in the woods she couldn't help but save me save, my life; the life that Artemis wanted to take away. She blessed me and I became like her honorary son.

As a mark of her blessing to me, she left me with the enchanted necklace; forged by Hephaestus and molded into a small strand of wheat. The charm is always around my neck along with my beads from camp. The charm helps enhance all of my godly powers, especially healing.

Demeter wanted to protect me just like any mother would want to protect their child.

Thanks to the light emitted from my necklace, I was able to see a couple feet in front of me in the sinister darkness of the tunnel

When I located Skylar and the two remaining Furies (which didn't take long thanks to all the noise they were making) I aimed a poisoned arrow at the Furies and shot down one. It vaporized into golden dust.

I grinned, only one left. I started to run towards the Fury.

"Hey ugly!" I screamed, waving my bow over my head. Skylar turned to me but the Fury ignored me. Well that backfired.

"Hey Alecto!" I screamed louder, my voice echoing through out the tunnel. This time the Fury turned. She should have known I was calling her ugly. I'd never call Skylar ugly. She was the exact opposite of ugly. She was actually pretty beautiful...Skylar I mean, n-not the Fury. Um.

Anyway...

It turned hissing and tried to strike me with her fiery whip. I dodged it easily and pulled out my dagger again. I was about to strike when I heard a familiar sound.

It was the train.

I turned and was blinded as the trains headlights flooded into my head. I couldn't run and I didn't know why. I stood there staring at the train as it got closer and closer.

Suddenly, I fell to the side. Skylar had tackled me out of the way. We smashed into the concrete wall, our heads banging together. No more than a second later, the incoming train smashed into the leader of the Furies, killing her instantly.

Golden dust shimmered on the rails and lined the path of the train. I sighed, full of relief as I looked down at Skylar.

"Dude. We just took on the Furies. And, you know, didn't die."

Skylar was panting, and bleeding, her hoodie ripped to shreds.

"Yeah, we did, didn't we, Sunflower?" She smiled at me, and I could see the exhaustion in her face. The wave of water she had summoned had taken a lot out of her. If it wasn't for Demeter's gift, which had already completely healed my back wounds by then, I would be exhausted too.

Skylar's cheek was bleeding, as was her arm. I knelt on the floor and pulled her down gently. I took out some ambrosia and nectar from my bag, as well as some bandages.

"We need to keep moving if we want to make it in time," I said as I trickled a bit of nectar on to her arm. I poured some water over her arm as well and the cuts instantly began to close. I fed her a square of ambrosia, which she ate out of my hand reluctantly and the cut on her cheek began to vanish as well. "We're already behind schedule thanks to that little fiasco."

I stood and offered her my hand. She stood up, and nodded.

"Thanks. Although you didn't have to feed me that ambrosia like that. I'm not a baby."

I smirked and shrugged. She smiled and looked down. She stretched her hand slightly towards me, I curled my fingers around her hand and she shadow traveled us up to street level. We materialized in the eerie shadow of a lonely street light.

It was early in the morning, the sun was just rising. We were in a seemingly calm place. There were tall pine trees every where.
In the distance I could see a tall Christmas tree covered in sparkling lights.

There was fresh powdered snow everywhere. I shivered it was cold. I hoped Skylar was okay, her jacket had been ripped to shreds back underground.

I looked at her. Her teeth were chattering slightly but she didn't show any other signs of cold. She turned me down when I asked if she was cold so I asked something else.

"So, what do we do now?", I began. "Do you even know where we are?"

Skylar shook her head. "Not exactly. The train couldn't have taken us very far..."

I looked for people to ask. Instantly, I noticed a woman watering flowers. The flowers were all placed in neat rows in a small cart.

"Demi's Flowers" was painted in bright letters on one side of the cart.

Skylar and I walked over to her, and I tapped her shoulder.

"Hello, I'm sorry to bother you, but what state are we in?" I asked.

The woman, probably Demi, looked up from her flowers and smiled at us. She had elegant emerald eyes. Her hair was beautiful, golden like wheat ready to be harvested.

Something about her made me feel comfortable at once; like I could tell her anything. I felt safe with her...and that made me half uncomfortable.

"Oh, aren't you a handsome devil? And you're such a pretty young lady."

Skylar smiled at her but shook her head, "I-I'm not. But thank you."

"Yes you are." I told her and turned back to the woman.

"And what a lovely couple you are, dear. Young love is so nice to see these days."

I tried but failed to hold back a deep blush. I glanced at Skylar who was also blushing. We looked down at our hands and saw that we were still holding hands. We slowly unraveled our fingers.

"I'll go wait for you over there."

Skylar pointed to a small motel across the street. She left, walking quickly and didn't turn back once. I turned back to the woman, strangely upset that Skylar had left.

The woman seemed to take notice to this, and giggled subtlety.

"We're in Pennsylvania. Gettysburg Pennsylvania, to be specific." She said with a sunny smile.

I managed a quiet "Thank you ma'am" before turning around to leave.

"Wait."

I turned again and saw the woman holding out a flower to me. "I'm sorry if I upset your girl--um, your "friend"."

She held out a sunflower to me.

"Oh," I said quietly. "How much?"
She wrinkled her nose, "For you, any of my flowers are yours."

I took the flower, great fully and thanked her again.
I started walking to the motel but stopped in my tracks.

"My flowers are your flowers...?" I turned but the woman had vanished, her cart of flowers as well. Lushes green grass and wild flowers sprouted from the cracks on the concrete in almost a path. Weird...

I thought about this for moment then quickly returned to Skylar.

***

When I finally found Skylar again, she was at the front desk being handed a key. She was still a bit red but other wise she was smiling sweetly to the man behind the desk. She saw me and walked over to me.

"Well?"

"Pennsylvania." I replied shyly. "Gettysburg Pennsylvania."

A look of disappointment crossed Skylar's face. "I was hoping we would at least make it to Missouri before our first monster attack. This is horrible."

"We should just be glad we survived the Furies." I said, trying to cheer her up.

"Yeah, I guess", Skylar replied, her voice sullied with despair and regret.

"Hey, don't feel bad. We'll get to Percy in time. We have to. But in the mean time, I say we celebrate with some breakfast."

Skylar giggled which was a bit odd, but kind of cute and funny. She reminded me of a little kid right there and then. Innocent and not cursed. Like she was waiting for Santa to bring her a doll instead of her running for her life to save her brother.

"Okay," she said finally. "Our room is right down the hall. Come on."

We stayed at the Gettystown Inn, which I enjoyed mainly because of the free breakfast provided in the morning. It was about 5 or 6 am in the morning. I ordered breakfast although Skylar didn't seem hungry. We sat on the one bed together and discussed a new plan.

"Oh," I said, mid bite. "I forgot to give this to you." I tucked the sunflower behind her ear. "The woman said sorry for...you know..."

"Mistaking us for a couple?"

"Yeah."

"You should have told her it was fine"

I shrugged and went back to eating.

Skylar was wrapped in the warm blankets the motel provided. She studied maps and books and hardly touched her free breakfast. After a while of flipping though tourist guides and maps that we found on the night stand by the bed Skylar spoke some of the most unexpected words I've ever heard her speak. She closed a book softly as I stuffed my face full of my second helping chocolate pancakes.

"So, after thinking about it for a while, I've come to one conclusion."

I raised an eyebrow, setting down my fork. "Which is?"

"I'm going to shadow travel us all the way to California. Even if. It. Kills. Me."